>Steve wrote:>> I see little reason to give such people extra credibility by not> strongly refuting their arguments (if you don't, they turn around > and say "See, YEC must be true because the 'evilutionists' can't > answer this argument!" -- and I've seen this done by ICR folk).>>> James was arguing for civility, Steve. One can be civil and still post>> a strong refutation.

Can one? I'm not sure. Strong refutations are usually taken as personal
attacks by the people targeted by them.

>> What I see are posts from far too many people (not all) who express their>> distaste of their opponent -- or his/her tactics -- and I, for one, find>> this offputting to the extent I don't really pay much attention to their>> refutation.

Quite frankly, what I find offputting is the timid approach taken by many
Christians (especially those in the sciences) of not directly confronting many
of the outright misrepresentations and lies espoused by some in the YEC
community. This is supposedly done in the name of Christian unity or civility
but instead grants legitimacy to their arguments. I'm certain people can
argue in a more civil manner than I do but I don't see them on this list very
often so the job is left to people like me.

There are people on this list spinning all types of fanciful fairy tales
about geology (and other things) which are clearly not based on any knowledge
of geology and without any observational, experimental, or theoretical support.
It's all armchair hypothesizing ("well maybe giant meteorites created tsunamis
carving the Grand Canyon and scaring the dinosaurs to higher ground and ...")
which would be laughed out of any group of real geologists (present that abstract
at the Geological Society of America conference in Denver next October Allen or
Art -- or is it simply easier to post to mailing lists where such discussions
are irrelevent and ignored by virtually all in the geological community?).
Sorry, I suppose that was a personal attack.

I'm sorry for being blunt but someone has to insert a tone of reality here.
Maybe many on this list don't interact much with the academic community but
a lot of the stuff being bandied about here is viewed in the same way as
speculations about crop circles, bigfoot, or alien autopsies by people who
teach and do geology (except for those in fundamentalist or Adventist colleges).
Virtually no one in the geological community knows or cares about the issues so
fervently debated here and these discussions really are nothing more than a
monumental waste of time (for which I'm sorry I contribute to sometimes).